I’d like to first begin by repeating the sentiments I’ve expressed in the bulletin this weekend. Thank you to all who took part in the parish picnic last week: members of parish council and volunteers who helped with the planning and set-up, all who brought food, and those who simply attended adding to the fellowship we were able to enjoy.
Fellowship is a vital dimension of the Christian life. One might call it one of the pillars of our faith. Nowhere in Scripture do we get the impression that the mission of the Church relies solely on a single person. God Himself is not a single person. So Christians are not meant to be lone rangers.
Yes, each of us are to cultivate a personal relationship with God—learning to listen to him, to talk to him, to recognize him in the details of your life—cultivating a deep personal love for Him in your heart. And that’s something that I can’t do for you. The personal relationship with God requires individual effort.
While we are all to personally nurture that personal relationship with God, we are also part of a community of believers. Jesus founded a church, called groups of people together to work together and worship together.
A parish, like St. Ignatius of Antioch parish, is not simply a building or set of buildings in which individuals gather for simply my personal moment with Jesus and then i go home. A parish is a sort of headquarters, in which we plan and engage in the mission of the Church given to us by Christ together. A parish is a unique Christian community with unique gifts and challenges.
Throughout his new testament letters, St. Paul is uniqueness of the various Christian communities he visited: the Philippians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Thessalonians, the Corinthians. Like our own, each of those communities had its unique gifts and unique challenges.
Paul praised the Philippians for instance, for their generous support of the Church. And for their strong sense of partnership—they grasped the notion of cooperation in the spread of the Gospel. Yet they were not without challenges. Paul had to address disunity and rivalry among the Philippians.
The Galatians too had their gifts—Paul describes how they experienced a tremendous outpouring of the holy Spirit and miracles, even, were evident. Yet Paul had to address how members of the Galatian church were being swayed by a "different gospel," as he called it—some members were insisting that gentiles had to be circumcised if they were to be saved. And where does Jesus teach that? So Paul had to correct their sacramental theology—that baptism alone is needed for salvation.
So, too, the Ephesians. Paul praised their strong faith in Christ, and their love for the saints. He thanked God for their profound spiritual blessings that were evident among them. Yet, the Ephesians had challenges. Paul challenged them to grow in unity and maturity, to put off their old way of life and put on the new one. He detected some willful ignorance in them, hardness of heart, callousness, licentiousness and impurity.
And then there were the Corinthians! The Corinthians, Paul wrote were enriched in speech and knowledge, and they had a variety of spiritual gifts. But just because they knew the faith and were eloquent in explaining it, didn’t mean they were living it. There were divisions and quarrels among them. They tolerated sexual immorality among them. They had disagreements about marriage and food offered to idols. They also had arguments about theology. They had issues with disorder in worship. Their culture divisions, political divisions, theological divisions, and spiritual divisions were threatening their mission and their souls.
So, to address their many divisions, Paul gave them theological guidance and practical advice. He stressed the importance of right teaching, but also the need to act in accordance with that teaching. He reminded them that their primary identity was in Christ, not in any human leader. He urged them to build their lives not on the wisdom of the world, but the wisdom of God—that true wisdom is found in the message of the cross, not in human eloquence or philosophy. Since division is often a rotten fruit of pride and selfishness, Paul called the Corinthians to practice Christlike humility and love. He gave them practical instructions on how to handle their disputes and disagreements, and instruction on how to conduct orderly liturgies.
Above all, Paul emphasized that love should be the guiding principle in all things. He presented love as the antidote to the rivalry and pride that were causing divisions—"love is patient, love is kind, love is not jealous: it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”
Paul, the keen pastor, addressed the divisions in those early communities, like Corinth, because, like our Master in the Gospel, Paul knew that a house divided against itself will not be able to stand. Christian friendship, fellowship, faith, communal worship, unity of belief strengthen the church, where selfishness, isolation, ignorance, liturgical impiety, and attachment to the values of the world cause disunity, division, and a weakening of a community.
I focus on this issue of unity this weekend, again, because it has been so good to see the parish come together in a number of ways the past few weeks. The Light for love event was such a beautiful example of different members of the parish with different spiritual gifts working together in an evangelical effort. And also, the parish picnic. And the garden club and SVDP. The more we can work together, the better.
I also focus on this issue we are head toward a season wrought with challenge. Election season is just around the corner. And I know this parish has a wide spectrum of political views. But in the Spirit of St. Paul I urge you, please do not allow political differences, and emotions surrounding political opinions keep you from working together, loving one another patiently, praying with each other and for each other.
There are people who have walked away from the Church and the sacraments because their political views were irreconcilable with church teaching. Don’t make that mistake. Don’t let politics divide you from Christ—and cause division in this parish.
As things get heated up in the world these next few months, we’ll need to fortify ourselves. Fast for peace, make frequent sacramental confessions, and visits to the blessed sacrament, pray for the holy spirit to guard us against division and show us ways to work together, pray together, and love one another.
Remember, the words of Paul: “what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal.” Our task, isn’t to fix the world, it’s unfixable, but to draw souls to Christ, to unity with Him and His Body the Church, to the kingdom that is eternal, for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
